Where on their banks of light they lie, The happy hills of Heaven between, The Gods that rule the morning sky Are not more young, nor more serene Than were the intrepid Four that stand, The first who dared to live their dream, And on this uncongenial land To found the Abbey of Theleme. We kept the Rabelaisian plan:[4] We dignified the dainty cloisters With Natural Law, the Rights of Man, Song, Stoicism, Wine and Oysters. The library was most inviting: The books upon the crowded shelves Were mainly of our private writing: We kept a school and taught ourselves. We taught the art of writing things On men we still should like to throttle: And where to get the blood of kings At only half-a-crown a bottle. * * * * * Eheu Fugaces! Postume! (An old quotation out of mode); My coat of dreams is stolen away, My youth is passing down the road. * * * * * The wealth of youth, we spent it well And decently, as very few can. And is it lost? I cannot tell; And what is more, I doubt if you can. The question’s very much too wide, And much too deep, and much too hollow, And learned men on either side Use arguments I cannot follow. They say that in the unchanging place, Where all we loved is always dear, We meet our morning face to face, And find at last our twentieth year.... They say, (and I am glad they say), It is so; and it may be so: It may be just the other way, I cannot tell. But this I know: From quiet homes and first beginning, Out to the undiscovered ends, There’s nothing worth the wear of winning, But laughter and the love of friends. * * * * * But something dwindles, oh! my peers, And something cheats the heart and passes, And Tom that meant to shake the years Has come to merely rattling glasses. And He, the Father of the Flock, Is keeping Burmesans in order, An exile on a lonely rock That overlooks the Chinese border. And One (myself I mean--no less), Ah!--will Posterity believe it-- Not only don’t deserve success, But hasn’t managed to achieve it. Not even this peculiar town Has ever fixed a friendship firmer, But--one is married, one’s gone down, And one’s a Don, and one’s in Burmah. * * * * * And oh! the days, the days, the days, When all the four were off together: The infinite deep of summer haze, The roaring boast of autumn weather! * * * * * I will not try the reach again, I will not set my sail alone, To moor a boat bereft of men At Yarnton’s tiny docks of stone.